Saturday, August 31, 2013
She loved much; spread joy; faced life
Joe Mannath SDB
Two
men in the slum fought. The bitterness reached such a height, that one
of them decided to kill the other. In front of others, in broad
daylight, Santosh went at the other with a huge machete. People around
shrank back, frightened. The enraged Santosh would have chopped up his
enemy, had not a caring woman intervened.
She saw what was happening. She caught
Santosh’s hand, telling him, “Don’t! You are not going to kill him.
Stop!” The angry man could have turned on her and attacked her with the
same knife. Instead, he listened to this caring woman. Then, others
stepped in to help.
The next day, Santosh came to meet the
woman who had prevented a murder, and fell at her feet. “Sister, I came
to thank you. In my anger, I would have killed him. The rest of my life
would have been in jail. What would have happened to my family, and to
his family?”
The woman I am talking about is Sister
Karuna SSpS, who died hardly a week ago, on August 22. Recalling this
incident, she told me, “Father, God gave me courage. I don’t know how I
got the strength to step in and catch Santosh’s arm.”
Karuna: those who knew her felt the name
suited her. She was truly a deeply compassionate human being. One of
the most helpful people I have met, who reached out and helped, and did
it so cheerfully. Her laughter lit up our CRI House in Delhi. I crack
jokes a lot, and Karuna would have the heartiest laughter. Whenever I
needed to get something, e.g., a SIM card, Karuna would come with me to
the shop. All the shopkeepers knew her, and would greet her, smiling,
“Sister!” She knew especially the “little people” nearby—the small
shopkeepers, the tailor on the street, the families with problems, the
sick people in the neighbourhood.
I have heard how, on one of her
transfers, people at the railway station wondered who this woman was,
since hundreds of people, especially women from the slums, came to see
her off, many of them in tears.
We were lucky to have a committed
visionary to head the newly formed wing of our national CRI, called
CRISEC (S-E-C standing for socio-economic concerns). Karuna was no
arm-chair leader, but someone very close to the people who suffered.
Thus, after the Kandhammal atrocities against Christians, she went there
personally, living among the people, dressed like them.
It looks as if God prepared Karuna for
her final journey. Her father, to whom she was very attached, passed
away two months ago (his funeral was exactly two months before hers).
After returning to Delhi, she went to Patna for her annual retreat. She
told me: “I want to spend time with God and with my father.” She came
back to Delhi happy and relaxed, strengthened by her retreat experience.
When she travelled to Mumbai on August 7th to take part in a meeting
organized by Streevani, no one ever imagined that would be her last
earthly journey. Except for a cold and slight cough, Karuna was her
usual self—cheerful, full of life, enthusiastic.
Karuna is a fine example of how to
combine a larger vision and ideal—justice, service of the poor,
commitment to religious goals—with tender, cheerful attention to the
individual human beings around her. It is so easy to talk of big things
and forget to care for the concrete persons around us, or to get lost in
activity and lose the vision and the love that energizes.
Just yesterday, some one told me that
her favourite Bible passage was Micah 6:8: “This is what Jahweh asks of
you—that your act justly, that you love tenderly, that you walk humbly
with your God.”
A happy religious, a woman of faith,
ready to forgive and start again, eager to be of service. We at CRI will
miss her radiant presence, her sisterly concern for each of us, her
common sense and humour , her heartfelt religious convictions, her
prayerful spirit. Our neighbours and visitors will miss her loving touch
and cheer. How much more she will be missed by her religious
congregation and by those for whom and with whom she worked for a much
longer time!
Thank you, God, for the gift of Karuna to us and to the world for fifty-one years!
Thank you, Karuna, for your loving,
radiant witness. We need many more human beings like you. We need more
religious of your caliber, conviction and joy. You stood up for justice,
you loved tenderly, you walked humbly and joyfully with your God.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Real story
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